Lee Memorial Health System is the recipient of a VHA Southeast Bright Ideas Award. The health system's palliative care team has received the Care Coordination Improvement Award for avoiding costs and lowering readmission rates while maintaining excellent patient satisfaction.

The award comes from VHA Southeast, a regional office of VHA Inc., a cooperative that serves not-for-profit health care organizations across the United States. LMHS was recognized for avoiding $9.8 million in costs while also improving 30 day readmission rates and gaining 100 percent patient satisfaction. Palliative care service, also known as Q-Life, is a comprehensive, interdisciplinary support team that cares for patients with advanced illness.

The palliative care services team created an outpatient palliative care clinic to continue the integrated care team model when patients are discharged from the hospital.

"Gaps in care can occur after discharge. Patients have different needs once they are back at home," explains Andrew Esch, M.D., LMHS Palliative Care Medical Director. "Having a team dedicated to outpatient needs helps to fill those gaps and keep patients on track with their care, avoiding complications and readmissions."

Award winners are determined by their regional VHA Southeast executive committee members of the Board of Directors. VHA Inc., based in Irving, Texas, is a national network of not-for-profit health care organizations that work together to drive maximum savings in the supply chain arena, set new levels of clinical performance, and identify and implement best practices to improve operational efficiency and clinical outcomes. VHA serves more than 1,350 hospitals and more than 72,000 non-acute care providers nationwide.

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